


Disclosure

by Stakebait



Series: Uncovered and other stories [11]
Category: White Collar
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 02:26:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11049375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stakebait/pseuds/Stakebait
Summary: Mozzie finds out who is behind the marshals' scrutiny; Peter finds out what Neal was prepared to do about it.





	Disclosure

Mozzie burst through Neal's door without bothering to knock. After his PTSD from the whole shirtless Peter fiasco, that meant he must be pretty excited about something.

“You were right!” Mozzie announced.

“About what?” Neal asked. He got out a couple of wine glasses and poured without asking; he had a new Clos Erasmus he wanted Moz's opinion on. 

“The marshals—they did have a source.”

“But I wasn't serious!” Neal protested. “I was just giving them a way to save face.”

“You might not have been serious,” Mozzie said, “but they were. And I know who it is. Sort of.”

“Sort of?” asked Neal, handing Mozzie the fuller glass and keeping one just at peak bouquet depth for himself.

“He only used a first name.”

“And that was?”

“Phillip.” 

“Shit.” Neal sat down abruptly in one of his kitchen chairs.

“How do you know this, Moz? Tell me you didn't hack into the U.S. Marshals service.”

“I didn't. Exactly,” Mozzie hedged. “I figured however your plan worked out, there was a good chance they'd call someone afterward to talk about it. So I flew a drone carrying a femtocell onto Peter's next door neighbor's porch roof.”

“A what?” 

“A mobile antenna. Their cell phones connected to that instead of the nearest tower, and they never even knew.” Mozzie sipped his wine with the air of one who had earned it.

“Aren't cell phone calls encrypted?”

“Yes,” Mozzie confirmed, and didn't elaborate. He didn't have to. “And I used an IMSI catcher to confirm the location of the other party.”

“Do I want to know what an IMSI catcher is?”

“I doubt it,” said Mozzie. “But you want to know this: he's in DC.”

“Agent Kramer,” Neal said. “Fuck.” He threw back his head and drank the wine at a gulp, as if it were supermarket plonk. “I need to tell Peter.”

Mozzie nodded. “You might as well,” he said. He's going to find out soon anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“I sent a copy of the recording to Peter's boss. Anonymously. Don't worry,” he said in response to Neal's incredulous look, “I used so many layers of protection, I could have sex with Typhoid Mary and not even get the sniffles.”

“Please never use that metaphor again,” said Neal. “And, Moz—thanks.” 

**************************

Neal came into Peter's office and closed the door behind him. “Remember what Moz told me? Listen to this,” he said, activating a small media player. Over it came the tinny sound of Hughes asking some D.C. switchboard operator for Agent Kramer's extension.

“You planted a bug in Hughes' office?” Peter demanded.

“Yes.”

“You planted a BUG in Hughes' OFFICE,” Peter repeated, in the futile hope that more volume might elicit a different answer.

“Yes, Peter, ssshh,” Neal replied briefly. 

“Can't you go one goddamned day without trying to get us both fired?” Peter demanded.

Neal cocked his head and gave this question the thought it deserved. “Probably,” Neal said after a moment, “but today's not that day. Now shut up, Peter. It's too late to undo it, so we might as well get the benefit.”

Peter was sure listening to arguments like that was why Neal Caffrey was the devil on his shoulder, but the trouble was, he couldn't immediately think of a rebuttal.

Hughes must have gotten Kramer on the line in the meantime. 

“I'm not saying you're wrong,” Hughes said into the phone, and Peter briefly regretted that Hughes hadn't put it on speaker so they could hear both sides of the conversation. 

“I'm saying you're more right than you know. Whatever it says on paper, Caffrey is not, and never has been, a Bureau asset. Caffrey is Burke's asset. As long as the Bureau has Burke and Burke has Caffrey, we benefit from his considerable expertise, and keep him within bounds—more or less. But if you separate them, and you think you'll keep Caffrey, you're fooling yourself.” 

“Best case, he goes back to prison. He tried to, you know, after your stooges left. To save Peter's career, he said. More likely, he'll be a loose cannon who doesn't know himself what side he's on. Worst case, you'll have made a brilliant and implacable enemy.” 

“No, Caffrey's no killer, and even if he were, Peter's previous relationship with you would guarantee your physical safety. But beyond that, I wouldn't care to guess how deeply Caffrey has internalized Burke's standards without Peter around to reinforce them.”

“I don't think you realize how close you are to ruining Burke as an agent. Taking Caffrey away from him isn't going to bring your old probie back. Even if you hadn't broken his trust—your boy is all grown up, Kramer, and Caffrey is his partner. In whatever fucking sense you like, and frankly, I doubt it matters which.” 

“No, I don't think Peter would ever go on the run with Caffrey. Because of Elizabeth. But even if you burned him with the other Federal agencies, even if NYPD didn't want him, Peter could easily go into private security consulting—and Caffrey would follow as soon as his sentence was up.” 

“Yes, I realize you could throw him back behind bars until he's old and gray—or keep him on the run. But what would that achieve, Kramer? I don't know if it's Peter's loyalty you want, or his conviction rate, or a CI who likes you better than the con, but you're not going to get any of them by destroying the most effective team I've ever seen. And if you don't stop fucking with my division, I'm going to start returning the favor.”

Hughes set the phone down sharply.

“Well, that was enlightening,” Peter admitted. “But now go and get the bug the hell out of Hughes office. I'll distract him.”

“I won't have to,” Neal predicted.

“If you think I am letting you listen in on confidential meetings indefinitely—”

“I don't,” Neal cut him off. “Wait.” Five, four, three, two...

There was a loud popping sound, like, say, someone crushing an activated listening device with a coffee mug, and then nothing but static.

“You mean, he knew it was there all along?” Peter rubbed his forehead. He was used to this kind of layers within layers when he was on the job, undercover—but not in the fucking office, for god's sake.

Hughes appeared in his doorway, giving Peter—but clearly _not_ Caffrey—the two finger summons.

“Remember,” said Caffrey, “you had nothing to do with planting the bug, and you didn't know anything about it.”

“I _didn't_ know anything about it!” Peter protested.

“Exactly,” said Caffrey.

*********************************

“I see you're still here,” said Hughes, unnecessarily.

Peter contented himself with a nod.

“And the marshals aren't.”

“They raided my house this weekend,” Peter couldn't keep the anger out of his voice. He didn't, in fact, try very hard. “Did you know about this, Reese? Ahead of time?”

“I did,” Hughes said. “And I suspect you did, too.”

Peter didn't say anything, which was answer enough.

Peter wasn't sure what he expected next—a lecture, maybe, about Hughes' overdrawn political capital, or a warning about Kramer, or to regularize the situation with Caffrey before it attracted more attention than he could deflect.

What he didn't expect was for Hughes to pull a file folder from his briefcase and slide it across the desk to Peter. The contents were instantly recognizable—a single sheet of paper, in Neal's handwriting—his real handwriting, not that of one of his many aliases.

“I think you should see this, Peter,” said Hughes.

He sat there and watched while Peter read it. It didn't take long.

“You know this is bullshit, right?” Peter asked, looking up from the page.

Hughes nodded. “It was the night of the Vasquez sting.”

“So why is Caffrey confessing to crimes he didn't commit?”

“He said, so I could use it to save your career, if I had to.”

“And why are you telling me?”

“Because it looks like you saved it without me. Because it's your career, Burke. And because I've seen the grenades you throw yourself on whenever you think Caffrey's in danger. And I don't want to be one of them. Somehow the other guy always seems to take all the damage in the long run. If you two want to play the gifts of the magi, that's your business. But not in my office, understand?”

Peter gave a firm nod. “Understood, sir.”

“Good.”

**********************************

Peter came out of Hughes' office in what even the newest probie could recognize as a towering rage. He barely paused by Neal's desk to bark “Caffrey, you're with me,” and Neal had to practically run to keep up as he followed him out of the office.

“Peter, what's wrong?” Neal asked. 

“Not here,” said Peter curtly, leaving Neal to run through increasingly horrific scenarios in his mind as they took the elevator down and exited onto the street. Peter was transferred back to the Cave. Neal was transferred to DC. Peter was transferred to DC. Neal was going back to jail. None of them, though, made any sense with the irritated soliloquy Hughes had just delivered to Kramer—and deliberately allowed Neal to listen in on.

Peter led them several blocks before he slowed his pace, down under an overpass next to the river—a windy and charmless spot that was a tribute to Robert Moses' fondness for cars and contempt for water views. But it was, at least, hard to overhear anything you said there—and if it required a certain amount of shouting over the traffic noise, Neal suspected that wasn't going to be a problem, for Peter, at least.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Peter demanded, pulling Neal's ersatz confession to the Prince heist—now folded in thirds—from his breast pocket and shaking it in Neal's face.

“I—” Neal started to answer.

“Shut up,” said Peter, as if he hadn't just that second asked Neal a question.

Peter started ripping up the single sheet of paper and just kept going, tearing it into smaller and smaller pieces until some of them started to blow away out of his hands, and then dumped the rest over the railing into the water. 

Neal did not have the heart to tease him about littering.

“Never. Do. That. Again.” Peter grated.

“Peter—” Neal started.

“Don't.” Peter cut him off again. “Do you know how much time you were looking at? For a second offense? Especially after we had to pull so many strings to get your deal back?”

“Yes,” said Neal.

“And you didn't even get the fucking painting!” Peter added, which was Neal's first clue that maybe Kramer was right and he was corrupting Peter, just a little.

“Peter,” Neal started again, “I know you're pissed, and I'm sorry. But I would do it again. I _will_ do it again, if I have to.”

Before Peter could explode from apoplexy—something that his alarmingly red face had Neal worried was more than a figure of speech—he added, “You did it for me.”

“I risked my career, not my freedom,” Peter objected.

“You risked the thing that mattered most to you, except for Elle, of course,” Neal ruthlessly set the parallel back up.

“No,” said Peter. “I didn't. I risked my career to _save_ the thing that mattered most to me, except for Elle.”

Which pretty much melted Neal's insides until he felt like a crème caramel under a hat. He wished like hell that he could just shut the fuck up and kiss Peter and have that be the end of it. But he couldn't. 

“I don't have a career,” he said instead. “This,” a sweeping downward gesture indicated the anklet, “is all I have to bargain with. I can't promise not to use it.”

“It's different,” Peter protested. “You were my responsibility.”

“And you're mine,” said Neal, “That's what partners means.” If there's anything Ellen had taught him, it was that.

“I can take care of myself, Caffrey,” Peter growled.

Neal was sorely tempted to point out that he could too, but he restrained himself, and only partly because of the laundry list of counter-examples that Peter would surely produce. 

“That's not the point, Peter,” he said instead. “Elizabeth told me years ago that you were the best thing that ever happened to me. She was right. Peter, I can't stand to be the worst thing that's ever happened to you. Not when I can fix it.”

Peter paused, arrested by Neal's words. His response was nothing Neal would have expected.

“I guess Jones was right,” he said.

“What the fuck does Jones have to do with anything?” Neal demanded. 

“I told him and Diana that if I go down for this, it's worth it. And he told me I should tell you.”

If this was still a fight they were having, it was the weirdest one Neal had ever encountered. Not that he was complaining.

“Neal,” said Peter, “If I was gonna get fired tomorrow, I would do it all over again.”

Neal swallowed hard. “If I was going back to prison tomorrow, I would too.”

“That's very sweet, Caffrey,” Peter said dryly, “but that doesn't mean you have to MAKE IT FUCKING HAPPEN.”

“You're not gonna let this go, are you?” asked Neal.

“Do I ever?”

Neal's shrug admitted the justice of that. “After what happened to Franklin...”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I swear to god, I wish you'd never heard of Franklin. I'm not gonna end up like him, because no matter where the Bureau sends me, I'm not breaking up with you.”

“.....oh.” Neal said, out of clever comebacks.

“And I do _not_ want to spend the next twenty years driving to Sing-Sing every weekend, so _don't do that again_.”

Somehow it had never occurred to Neal that Peter would visit him in prison.

“I could send you sexy letters in code?”

“You could do that anyway,” Peter pointed out, then added hastily, “Just not through the work email.”

Neal rolled his eyes. “I'm not an idiot.”

“That's debatable,” Peter muttered, not quite under his breath.

“Fine,” Neal capitulated, “No more false confessions. I promise.”

“Good.” The tension went out of Peter's shoulders all at once. He caught Neal by the face, his thumbs on Neal's sharp cheekbones and his hands cupping the sides of his cheeks, and pulled him close for a fast, hard kiss, then released him abruptly.

“Can you get us into one of these cars?” Peter demanded, gesturing around them at the many parked cars under the elevated highway.

“Of course,” Neal said. “Why?”

“Because I almost lost you,” said Peter, “And I need to be sucking your cock right now.”

Neal felt more than a little guilty. Peter did not seem to notice that Neal hadn't promised anything about true confessions, or about sending evidence to Kramer, or to Interpol for that matter—Peter could hardly drive to Europe every weekend. But, Neal told himself, the omission was for Peter's own good—and Elizabeth's. And with luck, it would never come up. 

Neal covered his confusion by breaking into the back seat of a nearby sedan—chosen for its ample size and seriously tinted windows. It wasn't hard, not when he didn't need the thing to actually start. He concentrated on not leaving any marks—with luck, and as long as Peter swallowed, the owner would never know anyone had been there.

Neal couldn't actually say he was feeling sexy right now—his own impulse would have been more to just hang onto Peter for an hour or two. But if they weren't fired, they didn't have an hour or two before they had to be back at the office. And the very last thing Neal wanted to do right now was say no to Peter. He felt like he'd used up a lifetime supply of that already.

Besides, what Peter's blow jobs lacked in finesse and experience they more than made up for in enthusiasm. Or in this case, urgency—Neal barely had the car door shut before Peter was face first in his lap and sucking like he had beer in there. Under those circumstances, it didn't take Neal long to get hard. Jeez, Peter must have been really rattled. 

Neal spared an irritated thought for Hughes—what part of “hide this” sounded like “give it to Peter,” for fuck's sake? But given that Hughes was currently engaged in taking on Kramer to save his ass, Neal couldn't work up much of a head of steam. 

He caressed the back of Peter's neck and his shoulders through the straining suit jacket Peter hadn't bothered to take off, but he couldn't reach anything really interesting.

“If you move,” Neal suggested, “I could return the favor.” Actually he wasn't sure two full grown men in suits could manage a 69 in the back of even a luxury sedan, but he was game to try.

Peter looked up, his eyes a little glazed. “No,” he said. “You don't get to make me come today.”

“Is that my punishment?” Neal couldn't help asking. If so, it was a good one.

But Peter shook his head. “It's not about that. For once you are going to sit there and fucking take something that I give you, and like it, and not try to give it back.”

“Okay, Peter. Okay,” Neal murmured soothingly.

And then Peter added a delicate graze of teeth to where Neal's head met his shaft and Neal was finally, blessedly able to stop thinking altogether.

***********************************

To Peter's surprise, Elizabeth burst out laughing when he told her the story over dinner. 

“I'm sorry, hon,” she apologized. “Of course I don't want Neal to go back to prison. It's just... he even managed to forge his own confession! Don't you think that's even a little bit funny?”

When she put it like that... okay, a little. Peter's lips twitched.

“Besides,” she went on, “He's right.”

“He's not,” Peter said immediately.

“Not about being the worst thing that ever happened to you,” Elle explained. “But he's right that you've risked a lot to take care of him for a long time.”

“He takes care of me too,” Peter said gruffly. “I can't count how many times he's saved my life, Elle.”

“I can,” said Elle tartly. “And that's what I mean. You always say he's your responsibility. And I know that technically you're his handler. But if you mean it when you call him your partner, then he's right, you're his responsibility too. I know he's been trying to live up to your standards for a long time now. But it sounds like he's finally getting some of his own. And for someone who always says he wants Neal to learn to step up and shoulder his responsibilities, maybe you shouldn't be trying to stop him.”

“I should when he's doing it by shooting himself in the foot without even talking it over with me first!”

“Because he's afraid you can't handle it, hon. I wonder where he learned that,” Elizabeth said with a significant look.

“So you're saying this is all my fault,” Peter grumbled.

“I'm saying, our little boy is growing up,” Elizabeth corrected.

“I liked 'this is all my fault' better,” said Peter. “Now I feel like I need a shower and a shrink.”

“Okay, how about your sexy sociopath boyfriend is belatedly developing a moral code?”

“Much better,” said Peter.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, to Dotfic for beta reading. All remaining errors are my own.
> 
> White Collar was produced by Jeff Eastin and originally aired on the USA Network. No profit has been or will be generated by this transformative work.


End file.
